Will Patterson ’27
Kyle Zhang ’27
Ryan Wen ’27
While a few close House races have not been called in the 2024 elections, Americans know now that Donald J. Trump will be the next president of the United States with a House and Senate Republican majority. Among the EA community, expectations for the election results and views on the elections’ implications differ widely, shedding light on the strategic strengths and weaknesses of Trump’s and Harris’s campaigns.
Regarding the election results, many EA community members did not anticipate the results, while others were unsurprised. Michael DiMonte ’25, a member of the Young Republicans Club, states, “I was expecting Donald Trump to win, but not by as much as he did.” Not as surprised, Dr. Christopher Row, faculty advisor for the Young Independents Club, explains, “The polls showed very tight numbers in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They showed a half percentage point advantage for Vice President Harris, but if you go back to at least the earlier two election cycles, that polling has been off by 4% or 5% in favor of the Democrats. So, to have it show up the way it did, which is 4 percentage points in favor of Trump, came as no surprise at all.”
Photo courtesy of 270towin
A striking feature of the election is that all seven swing states—Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—voted in favor of Trump. While margins of victory are usually incredibly tight in these states, an interesting trend from the past two elections has emerged. In these past two elections, almost all swing states voted for the same candidate; in the 2020 election, Biden also won the vast majority of swing states, winning six out of seven. Similar demographics across swing states possibly contribute to the swing states’ tendency of all tending toward one candidate. Elaborating on these patterns, Michael Whalen, faculty advisor for the Young Republicans Club, says, “A lot of the demographics that make up Pennsylvania are also reflected in Michigan and Wisconsin.” In addition, “[Arizona and Nevada] are both western states, and because of that, I’m not surprised that when one of them went for Trump the other one also went.”
Photo courtesy of AP Photo
These major gains in critical states can be further attributed to the increased support for Trump from traditionally left-voting groups, such as Hispanic and Black voters. These key demographics, the majority of which voted for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton in 2020 and 2016 respectively, instead voted for the president-elect. Jack Gallagher ’25 discusses this conservative shift, saying, “I think it makes sense. The Democratic Party goes through stages historically of neglecting its base and focusing on a very small subset of people. This happened essentially right before FDR got elected; the Republicans were wildly popular, and then we’ve been on a decline since Carter. He was the first Democratic politician to really be challenged on his economic policies, where he had the stagflation and this, that and the other. So it certainly makes sense the Democratic Party used to do a lot of work to regain support from every part of their base that they have historically had, which includes blue-collar workers and union voters who are shifting more to Trump, as well as minorities both racial and sexual gender-based minorities, they need to really refocus on those groups.” When considering populations of voters, it is important to remember that while this kind of analysis is helpful, votes within racial and socio-economic populations can still differ widely and should not be considered just a single vote.
Policy, as with all elections, also played a crucial role in shaping voter preferences, as shown by EA community member opinions. DiMonte points to one of the issues with Harris’ campaign: “I think she was also a single issue candidate, in my opinion. She really hammered home the fact that she was pro-abortion and Trump wasn’t. But Trump does not support a national abortion ban, and ran his own ads that said, ‘I don’t support a national abortion ban.’ And now on top of that, I want to fix the economy this way, and I want to impose these tariffs, and I want to focus on immigration, and I want to focus on these rights.”
Photo courtesy of Reuters
Within the EA community, many people also have differing opinions on the implications of a second Trump term. On one hand, DiMonte says, “I expect the economy to be a lot better,” as he expects that Trump’s proposed tariffs will increase American manufacturing. On the other hand, Gallagher highlights the potentially detrimental effects such policies could entail, saying, “It’s ridiculous to think that we have the manufacturing base necessary to overcome the higher prices that are a result of tariffs. We just don’t have it. Right now, there’s not one factory in the United States that makes an iPhone.” Gallagher also mentions concerns regarding Trump’s immigration policy. “They’ve talked about separating families [and] deporting up to 1 million people per year. That is an enormous number. It’s ridiculously expensive beyond any other justification for any other program that the government could possibly come up with.”
Ultimately, regardless of predictions or pre-election polls, Donald Trump has been chosen by the majority of the American voting population as the next president of the U.S., making him the second president to successfully regain the presidency after leaving it. While a small number of House races still have to be called, the Republican party holds a majority in both the next Senate and House of Representatives. As Americans await to see what a second Trump term will look like, EA community members continue to hold a healthy diversity of opinions about the election results and implications.